I. I admit it. I'm the weird one. Long before Parkland, long before Sandy Hook, long ago I began the practice of keeping my classroom door locked and closed at all times. What makes me weird is that I do not allow anyone except me to open the door.
You read that correctly. I answer the door, not students, not teenagers, not children. ME. Only me.
Teens see a classmate or friend through the window and throw the door open not stopping to realize that someone they cannot see may be ready to come through the door.
Only me.
It's routine for me. I hear a knock or a student alerts me that there's someone at the door. I go to the door, scan as much of the hallway as I can, assess the situation, and make the decision. If I make the wrong decision, I'm the one in the doorway dealing with it while my students jump out the window as fast as they can.
Weird ol' Mr. Sampson. It's the best I can do to keep my room secure.
II. Calls and plans for school walkouts have begun. Three days are mentioned: March 14, April 20 (anniversary of Columbine), and May 1. I have made no decision as to what I will do. I could be fired if I walk. At 60 years of age, it will be difficult to find another job and 60 is too early to retire. But a moment has arrived where one must make a decision whether to stand up and be counted.
Enough about me. This is a call for civil disobedience and that is what I will help students understand. There are times when rules and laws must be disobeyed, either because the laws and rules themselves are immoral or because something of tremendous importance requires action that would normally not be considered.
Students taking action, demanding change, demanding reasonable laws, insisting that their lives be protected, organizing protests in whatever form, walk-out, sit-in, or a march, these students are making the decision to engage in civil disobedience for a cause that matters: their lives.
There will be consequences and they need to understand that. That's the point of civil disobedience: authorities impose consequences until they are so shamed by the lack of resistance that they cannot ignore the issue anymore.
Remember these days: March 14, April 20, May 1.
III. You cannot enter the U.S. Capitol Building without undergoing a screening of your belongings and passing through a metal detector. Congress Protects Itself
Yet those senators and representatives won't even try to engage in writing laws to protect schoolchildren.
IV. Out of thousands of responses I've read over the past two days, I've only found two teachers saying, "Hell, yes , let me have a gun."
I'd like to say no teacher is saying that, but I have to be factual.
That almost no teacher wants a deadly weapon in their classroom should give all the self-appointed experts, who think because they once went to school they know everything about education, pause.
V. We can stop these tragedies. But it takes the will to do so. It takes the ability to find solutions and do it! It takes giving up all the divisions that our elite have devised to keep us apart and fighting when we the people should come together, give the elite the boot, and "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." (Preamble to the United States Constitution, 1788)
Stone Eggs: Thoughts about world events, education, and theology
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Hollywood Heroes
John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Samuel Jackson, Bruce Willis ... the list goes on. These are the heroes who stepped up when the world was blowing up around them, when people were dying right and left, and saved the day with their heroics. Facing enormous obstacles and can't-beat-it odds, nevertheless, they pulled their guns out and blazed their way to glory.
The music world celebrated the hero complex this way:
Now we turn to teachers: our new heroes. We want to arm them, require them to carry weapons as a police officer does, because they will save the children.
(Never mind that we were just shaming them, falsely, as being unable to teach our children to read and do math.)
Yes, the average, anonymous teacher will be the new Hollywood hero. With no training, no experience in violent situations, and no evaluation as to qualifications, we now expect teachers to leap into action if a shooter is active in their school. Rather than try to shelter children or get them out of harm's way, we want our teachers to pull their weapon and blaze away.
It is time, long past time, to stop viewing our world like a Hollywood movie. Real life is nothing like one.
Think of a police officer, someone who is authorized to carry lethal weapons. That officer has undergone training, pondered what-if situations to think in advance of the best way to respond, spent hours on a range honing skills in using a firearm, <I have asked my local police agency, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, for an idea of the training a police officer undergoes. When they respond, I will update this post. But I'm too eager to wait. Sorry.>
Teachers get none of that. Priorities, people. Should your teacher receive training in being a pseudo-soldier or SWAT officer? Or should their training be focused on your child's learning needs?
Teachers don't have enough time as it is. Go ahead and force them to spend their time preparing for a role that is not appropriate for a teacher. Then, when nothing happens at your schools, condemn your teachers for poor test scores.
If that doesn't convince you, consider this. While school shooting incidents are isolated, teacher misconduct occurs in every district every year. In my district, about a dozen out of 8,000 teachers are disciplined or fired for acting inappropriately with children every year.
That teacher (recent incident) terminated for swatting a young child on the back of the head? You really want that teacher carrying a gun when her frustration overwhelms her?
That teacher disciplined for taping children's mouths shut because he doesn't know how to make them stop talking? You really want that teacher having a gun to pull out and aim at the class?
We don't need heroes and we don't need teachers packing heat.
We need to address the root causes: the availability of guns that no one needs in domestic life, the trauma of our violent, urban neighborhoods, the dysfunction of families, everything that causes a child to make a horrific decision to exit life by taking as many others with them as they can.
The music world celebrated the hero complex this way:
Now we turn to teachers: our new heroes. We want to arm them, require them to carry weapons as a police officer does, because they will save the children.
(Never mind that we were just shaming them, falsely, as being unable to teach our children to read and do math.)
Yes, the average, anonymous teacher will be the new Hollywood hero. With no training, no experience in violent situations, and no evaluation as to qualifications, we now expect teachers to leap into action if a shooter is active in their school. Rather than try to shelter children or get them out of harm's way, we want our teachers to pull their weapon and blaze away.
It is time, long past time, to stop viewing our world like a Hollywood movie. Real life is nothing like one.
Think of a police officer, someone who is authorized to carry lethal weapons. That officer has undergone training, pondered what-if situations to think in advance of the best way to respond, spent hours on a range honing skills in using a firearm, <I have asked my local police agency, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, for an idea of the training a police officer undergoes. When they respond, I will update this post. But I'm too eager to wait. Sorry.>
Teachers get none of that. Priorities, people. Should your teacher receive training in being a pseudo-soldier or SWAT officer? Or should their training be focused on your child's learning needs?
Teachers don't have enough time as it is. Go ahead and force them to spend their time preparing for a role that is not appropriate for a teacher. Then, when nothing happens at your schools, condemn your teachers for poor test scores.
If that doesn't convince you, consider this. While school shooting incidents are isolated, teacher misconduct occurs in every district every year. In my district, about a dozen out of 8,000 teachers are disciplined or fired for acting inappropriately with children every year.
That teacher (recent incident) terminated for swatting a young child on the back of the head? You really want that teacher carrying a gun when her frustration overwhelms her?
That teacher disciplined for taping children's mouths shut because he doesn't know how to make them stop talking? You really want that teacher having a gun to pull out and aim at the class?
We don't need heroes and we don't need teachers packing heat.
We need to address the root causes: the availability of guns that no one needs in domestic life, the trauma of our violent, urban neighborhoods, the dysfunction of families, everything that causes a child to make a horrific decision to exit life by taking as many others with them as they can.
Friday, February 16, 2018
Thoughts and Prayers
Like the steady ticking of a clock, another school tragedy has occurred. Wednesday, February 14, the day of love, a 19 year-old former student acted on his impulse to shoot up his former school. This day, seventeen lives were taken.
We used to offer our condolences. It was a stock phrase and remains so, yet its utterance is understood: I don't know the words to say, but we know what this means, and I can say it to keep my emotions checked so I don't break down in utter despair and sob my way through the hours of awfulness while I process how horrible this is.
My condolences to the families of the victims, the other students and adults traumatized by the event.
However, the usual response of media, politicians, and others is to say, "My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends."
Let the social media nastiness begin.
And it has.
Therefore, let us dissect this carefully.
First, the thoughts. People caught in a camera used to offer their prayers, but then took second thought that this may offend atheists and those of other faiths. They added thoughts so those who don't want prayers would not object.
People calling out the 'thoughts and prayers' on the internet are correct about this. Thoughts do nothing to address underlying causes and to devise solutions that effectively work to prevent a tragedy from happening again.
But the prayers? That takes a deeper dive.
It depends upon your theology. If you have a superficial belief and give token obeisance to the prevailing Christianity, then your prayers (if you really offer them) are no better than offering a formal expression of sympathy that does nothing for anyone except you.
If you don't think a Creator God is still actively involved in the world, stop telling people you will pray for them and say it better: I'm sorry, My condolences, This isn't fair.
But there remains in this world people of faith, people who know that the God who created the world has a very real interest in its well-being. This is not the time to discuss free will. When death strikes without warning and in intensity, it is never the time to discuss free will.
It is time to remember that for whatever reason God allows evil to happen, this is the same God who joined himself to human flesh and was willing to die for humanity.
That is what Christianity means. No other faith offers that.
If you don't believe that God died 17 times Wednesday afternoon, February 14, 2018, you don't understand Christianity and you should not judge it. (But by all means, judge the fake versions; God does.)
That God is so involved in human affairs, so passionately in sympathy with human suffering, that prayers will cause God to act.
When true people of faith say they will offer prayers, that is what they mean. They will pester and bug and bother God (not that God needs it, and please forgive the awkward phrasing as I'm trying to avoid the pronoun issue) because they know God cares and will act.
Isn't that what our young people are demanding? Make them safe; enact reasonable and intelligent gun-control laws.
God works through human agency. God will find the right people. Keep praying.
My prayers are with you and for you.
We used to offer our condolences. It was a stock phrase and remains so, yet its utterance is understood: I don't know the words to say, but we know what this means, and I can say it to keep my emotions checked so I don't break down in utter despair and sob my way through the hours of awfulness while I process how horrible this is.
My condolences to the families of the victims, the other students and adults traumatized by the event.
However, the usual response of media, politicians, and others is to say, "My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends."
Let the social media nastiness begin.
And it has.
Therefore, let us dissect this carefully.
First, the thoughts. People caught in a camera used to offer their prayers, but then took second thought that this may offend atheists and those of other faiths. They added thoughts so those who don't want prayers would not object.
People calling out the 'thoughts and prayers' on the internet are correct about this. Thoughts do nothing to address underlying causes and to devise solutions that effectively work to prevent a tragedy from happening again.
But the prayers? That takes a deeper dive.
It depends upon your theology. If you have a superficial belief and give token obeisance to the prevailing Christianity, then your prayers (if you really offer them) are no better than offering a formal expression of sympathy that does nothing for anyone except you.
If you don't think a Creator God is still actively involved in the world, stop telling people you will pray for them and say it better: I'm sorry, My condolences, This isn't fair.
But there remains in this world people of faith, people who know that the God who created the world has a very real interest in its well-being. This is not the time to discuss free will. When death strikes without warning and in intensity, it is never the time to discuss free will.
It is time to remember that for whatever reason God allows evil to happen, this is the same God who joined himself to human flesh and was willing to die for humanity.
That is what Christianity means. No other faith offers that.
If you don't believe that God died 17 times Wednesday afternoon, February 14, 2018, you don't understand Christianity and you should not judge it. (But by all means, judge the fake versions; God does.)
That God is so involved in human affairs, so passionately in sympathy with human suffering, that prayers will cause God to act.
When true people of faith say they will offer prayers, that is what they mean. They will pester and bug and bother God (not that God needs it, and please forgive the awkward phrasing as I'm trying to avoid the pronoun issue) because they know God cares and will act.
Isn't that what our young people are demanding? Make them safe; enact reasonable and intelligent gun-control laws.
God works through human agency. God will find the right people. Keep praying.
My prayers are with you and for you.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Teacher of the Year: In My Dreams
My district would never dare to make me their new TOY: Teacher of the Year. But if they did, here is the speech I would deliver at the banquet.
"Thank you, thank you. This is a great honor. I'm not sure why I was chosen to be behind the podium tonight. There are far better and greater teachers than myself to honor.
"I'm not the best teacher in the district. In fact, I'm not the best teacher at my school. My saving grace is that I care deeply about the wellbeing of my students, all of it, not merely their academics, and I am the most kid-friendly teacher in the building.
"Teaching is one of the most difficult gigs a person could undertake, and if done right, most of what makes a great teacher is not only unrecognized, it is scorned.
"The teacher who notices that a child is absent too much, calls the parent, and discovers the cause, and then follows up with the guidance counselor, social services, child abuse or bullying hotline, whatever, wherever, to see that the child receives the help she or he needs, whose efforts go unrecognized because that does not translate into higher test scores, for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who spends thousands of dollars of salary to provide food, clothing, and other needs because others cannot or will not, even though that will never be captured in a Value Added formula and therefore will not be appreciated, for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who helps children to a better future but did not score high enough decades ago on their SAT exam, whom the political leaders of the state scorn as not being among the 'best and brightest,' yet their work qualifies them as 'best and brightest,' for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who comes from another country, who is an excellent teacher, who is loved by all her students, but cannot pass an exam in English writing but wait, is teaching children how to speak and understand her language and therefore does not need to be knowledgeable in writing an essay in English, and thus loses her job, but is a great teacher nonetheless, for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who is now spending thousands of dollars to pass qualifying exams because a for-profit company, whose name is now a swear word among professional teachers, is in charge of the exams and has set the passing rates at a level which does not serve to identify competent teachers but does serve to maximize said company's profits, for that teacher I accept this award.
"For teachers of color, and I hope the term is not offensive as it is the current linguistic coin of the day, who are pushed out of their jobs because they teach where they are needed most, in our most challenging schools ... they are great teachers and are the best hope our students of color have, for those teachers, I accept this award.
"For the teacher who forgoes the easy way, that of test prep, and tries to expose children to new ideas and experiences, who wants them to think deeply about what they are learning, and therefore will never have the best scores in the building, suffer the approbation of administrators who are only driven to achieve high scores and a school grade, and are under threat of termination although they are doing the real job of teaching, for that teacher, I accept this award.
"For the teacher who knows how unprepared a Teach for America colleague is, helps them become a qualified teacher who is effective in the classroom, and then has to listen to criticism about how bad they are and what a great teacher the TFA colleague is, for that teacher who grins and bears it, I accept this award.
"For every teacher who is told that their union, their only protection and help against the daily assault that they face, is the enemy of the people, for that teacher I accept this award.
"For every teacher, and this is all of us, who have to fight off the stupid ideas of self-designated experts who have never spent a day in the classroom, but think because they made some money in a tech industry that they know better than anyone else, but every idea they have ever had has failed, but they don't stop with their destructive efforts, for all those still fighting, I accept this award.
"For every teacher who can't help but give the 'teacher look' to the wealthy and powerful elite in their city as said wealthy and powerful elite explain why they would never send their children to a public school to suffer under the conditions imposed by the policies they push, for those teachers I accept this award.
"Public education is facing a crisis of extinction. The uber-wealthy have come out of the shadows and taken over government. They seek to establish an American Feudalism. We are in their way. They seek to destroy us.
"We must fight. We must fight them on the beaches; we must fight them in our towns. We must fight them in the countryside and in every city. We must yield no inch of soil uncontested. There are millions of us but few of them.
"The time is upon us. These next years are critical if we are to preserve our democracy and our freedom. We must use our vote, while we still have it, and remove from power every enemy of our freedom and our right to self-government, for this is what the destruction of public schools is really about.
"I see many scowling faces in my audience. Good, because you are not educators. You are the ones who hijacked this process to name a Teacher of the Year. You don't want to be called out, not yet, because we can still make a difference.
"And we will."
"Thank you, thank you. This is a great honor. I'm not sure why I was chosen to be behind the podium tonight. There are far better and greater teachers than myself to honor.
"I'm not the best teacher in the district. In fact, I'm not the best teacher at my school. My saving grace is that I care deeply about the wellbeing of my students, all of it, not merely their academics, and I am the most kid-friendly teacher in the building.
"Teaching is one of the most difficult gigs a person could undertake, and if done right, most of what makes a great teacher is not only unrecognized, it is scorned.
"The teacher who notices that a child is absent too much, calls the parent, and discovers the cause, and then follows up with the guidance counselor, social services, child abuse or bullying hotline, whatever, wherever, to see that the child receives the help she or he needs, whose efforts go unrecognized because that does not translate into higher test scores, for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who spends thousands of dollars of salary to provide food, clothing, and other needs because others cannot or will not, even though that will never be captured in a Value Added formula and therefore will not be appreciated, for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who helps children to a better future but did not score high enough decades ago on their SAT exam, whom the political leaders of the state scorn as not being among the 'best and brightest,' yet their work qualifies them as 'best and brightest,' for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who comes from another country, who is an excellent teacher, who is loved by all her students, but cannot pass an exam in English writing but wait, is teaching children how to speak and understand her language and therefore does not need to be knowledgeable in writing an essay in English, and thus loses her job, but is a great teacher nonetheless, for that teacher I accept this award.
"The teacher who is now spending thousands of dollars to pass qualifying exams because a for-profit company, whose name is now a swear word among professional teachers, is in charge of the exams and has set the passing rates at a level which does not serve to identify competent teachers but does serve to maximize said company's profits, for that teacher I accept this award.
"For teachers of color, and I hope the term is not offensive as it is the current linguistic coin of the day, who are pushed out of their jobs because they teach where they are needed most, in our most challenging schools ... they are great teachers and are the best hope our students of color have, for those teachers, I accept this award.
"For the teacher who forgoes the easy way, that of test prep, and tries to expose children to new ideas and experiences, who wants them to think deeply about what they are learning, and therefore will never have the best scores in the building, suffer the approbation of administrators who are only driven to achieve high scores and a school grade, and are under threat of termination although they are doing the real job of teaching, for that teacher, I accept this award.
"For the teacher who knows how unprepared a Teach for America colleague is, helps them become a qualified teacher who is effective in the classroom, and then has to listen to criticism about how bad they are and what a great teacher the TFA colleague is, for that teacher who grins and bears it, I accept this award.
"For every teacher who is told that their union, their only protection and help against the daily assault that they face, is the enemy of the people, for that teacher I accept this award.
"For every teacher, and this is all of us, who have to fight off the stupid ideas of self-designated experts who have never spent a day in the classroom, but think because they made some money in a tech industry that they know better than anyone else, but every idea they have ever had has failed, but they don't stop with their destructive efforts, for all those still fighting, I accept this award.
"For every teacher who can't help but give the 'teacher look' to the wealthy and powerful elite in their city as said wealthy and powerful elite explain why they would never send their children to a public school to suffer under the conditions imposed by the policies they push, for those teachers I accept this award.
"Public education is facing a crisis of extinction. The uber-wealthy have come out of the shadows and taken over government. They seek to establish an American Feudalism. We are in their way. They seek to destroy us.
"We must fight. We must fight them on the beaches; we must fight them in our towns. We must fight them in the countryside and in every city. We must yield no inch of soil uncontested. There are millions of us but few of them.
"The time is upon us. These next years are critical if we are to preserve our democracy and our freedom. We must use our vote, while we still have it, and remove from power every enemy of our freedom and our right to self-government, for this is what the destruction of public schools is really about.
"I see many scowling faces in my audience. Good, because you are not educators. You are the ones who hijacked this process to name a Teacher of the Year. You don't want to be called out, not yet, because we can still make a difference.
"And we will."
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